Voices
by Knightlee
Summary: A fanfiction based on a few scenes from the timeless book "Lilies of the Field" by William E. Barrett.  The book was eventually adapted for film, starring Sidney Poitier as Homer Smith.


**Author's Note**: I do not own Homer Smith or any of the characters mentioned in this little piece. They belong to William E. Barrett and no other. Anything in both italics and quotations has been taken from the book, except for the excerpt with two asterisks.

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_ "It was supper time but Homer paid no attention to his food. He ate it, but it made no impression on him. When he walked to the station wagon, he was empty of thought but filled with throbbing sound, a happy feeling of reverence. He stood for a long time looking at the shadowed shape of the excavation." _

The sounds of the nun's voices still rang in his ears. It was a foreign sound, but not unpleasant. That old nun, she was a regular jail warden, but even she seemed to have melted away from his thoughts for a moment. He only heard voices.

He had played for them. The chords of his guitar had followed his own voice through the familiar Baptist hymns, and he had felt in them the comfort of a home. "Them nuns felt it too," he decided. Out here, in a place God seemed to have forgotten, music was color. . . and color was beautiful. Music gave the dusty landscape depth and character. Music was a language and a color. It spoke during the moments of silence, when old Mother laid down the law. Music spoke to old Mother too. . . he couldn't see it, but he could sense it. He didn't know the head nun very well, but his instincts told him that somewhere inside of her was a woman who was afraid that everything she knew and cared about would be taken away. Again. Music was hope. Hope that God would come through. Hope that she would not fail this time.

"_Ve sing."_

And just like that, his music stopped.

He had watched the sisters organize themselves into a circle, looking for all the world like the choir back home, only with black robes and white faces instead of black faces and white robes. There was no shuffling of papers, no chattering, only a swift touch of the piano keys to unite their voices. To his surprise, he had been accepted in their circle as well. Sister Albertine played the chord twice and his fingers had easily found their places on the strings of his guitar. The sounds were organ-like, this time.

The nuns began to sing – some with surety, some with timidity, some began beautifully and others badly. Old Mother, now, she sang out boldly. Badly, but bold just the same.

He didn't know a word of Latin, but the tune appealed to his sense of balance. The Latin too, it fit the music. Following along, he had become familiar with what the chant expected of his accompaniment, and he learned to anticipate it. He'd never really accompanied anybody but himself before, but the chant begged to be followed, to be sung. . . no, to be prayed. It was going somewhere, he thought, now as he leaned back on the form of his folded cot. It was moving forward, maybe upward, and it was the kind of thing that brought a body out of himself, and started him thinking about who he was, and what he was doing. Dangerous thoughts.

The sunlight was moving steadily downwards towards the horizon, and the shadow in the excavation grew darker and darker. Homer's thoughts turned back to the nuns. They had sung more than one song, all of which sounded the same, but felt different. He remembered the curious feeling he had felt as he tried to copy the enigmatic sounds of the Latin language. The tunes were easy, but the the words were more challenging. Finally, he had given up making sense of them and trusted his intuition to do the job of discovering the patterns of the poetry.

"_Ave maris stella _

_Dei mater alma_

_Atque semper virgo_

_Felix coeli porta."*_

It wasn't too hard, he had thought. He smiled. In the quiet of the evening he could hear the voices again - his deep, easy voice mixed with the lighter, careful voices of the nuns. His drawl, their punctual Slavic accents. He still didn't know what the words meant, but he remembered every word.

Homer stared hard at the scorched foundation around the excavation – now only vaguely outlined in the evening light. Tomorrow he would take Mother to North Fork. He wondered why he had agreed to it. But it wouldn't take too long, and he'd be on the road again in one or two days. Then he'd. . . he'd . . . He tried to remember what he was hurrying to. He had been hurrying somewhere for his entire life. It made sense that he would be hurrying from this place. Hot and barren and lonely. At least, that is what it looked like when he had rolled into this cockeyed convent. But after tonight he couldn't think of it like that anymore. Whenever he did, he heard five voices, replaying their old songs in his head..

He pulled out his cot from behind him and set it up under the trunk door of the station wagon. With the blankets pulled up and around his chest, he went back to thinking. Nights like this usually made him feel pretty restless, but tonight was different.

"_Protect us lord, as we stay awake; watch over us as we sleep, that awake we may keep watch with Christ, and asleep, rest in His peace"**_

The night was peaceful and quiet.

The prayers of the nuns must have ended, he thought. Homer hadn't noticed it before, but they had been praying. Once again, he was clueless. "Funny thing about this place. Nobody knows nothin' and everybody is juss fine," he grunted. Nobody knew where the next meal would come from. Nobody knew how they would get the gas to travel to North Fork. Nobody knew who would send the bricks. Nobody. Old Mother least of all.

"'O-meer Shmidt! Goodnight."

"Gooden naght!"

"Gooden naight!"

Five voices cheerfully wished him good night beyond the thin walls of the hut they called a convent.

"G'night ladies. Sleep tight an' don't let them bedbugs bite." He turned over on his cot and tugged the thin blanket up to his chin. The sun finally sank down below the horizon and a single star announced the nighttime.

One thing was for sure. Mother's chapel would be built. Maybe not by him, but by someone. This land and these nuns needed it, just like they needed the music. The music needed a chapel too, he decided. Maybe old Mother was right. Maybe God would give them the gas and the bricks. Today He had given Homer a peace and contentment he hadn't felt since he left his hometown.

"Well God, it's up to you," he stated to the night sky. "This Baptist boy is willin' . . . alls you have to do is say the word."

Then he closed his eyes on the now pitch dark excavation and drifted off to sleep.

_Finis._

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_*_ Ave Maris Stella (an old Catholic hymn prayed during Vespers)

_*_ *Divine Office, part of Night Prayer. I have no clue how to say it in Latin (or German, for that matter), so you'll just have to use your imagination.


End file.
